23.05.2021
The plane carrying NEXTA founder Roman Protasevich was forced to land in Minsk
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ordered a MiG-29 fighter jet scrambled to escort a Ryanair plane about which a bomb threat had been received. The plane was flying the Athens — Vilnius route, but was forced to land in Minsk, since the pilots reported an emergency — the threat of an explosion.
On board the airliner was Roman Protasevich — the creator of the Telegram channel NEXTA, which in Belarus was declared a foreign extremist organization and banned on the country's territory. The corresponding initiative had earlier come from the Investigative Committee of Belarus.
